


don't you know you have my eyes

by axsun



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Episode: s14e5 The Tall Man, I donut care, I'm just here to make everyone sad, Other, also this is tagged with "Rosaline" but i use "Rosalyn" in the fic, childhood angst, please read warnings at beginning of fic!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:35:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24761683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/axsun/pseuds/axsun
Summary: Rosalyn always made time for her little sister.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 20





	don't you know you have my eyes

**Author's Note:**

> (content warning: graphic descriptions of suicide, descriptions of self-harm, reference to CSA/pedophilia. spoiler warning for Criminal Minds, S14E5, The Tall Man.)

Rosalyn finds her underneath the back porch.

“JJ? It’s Roz.”

She doesn’t answer, just digs her fingers into the moist dirt and tries not to sniffle too loudly. Rosalyn waits only a few seconds before crawling under, just barely squeezing under the wooden planks and settling in an awkward crouch next to her sister.

“Hey,” she says.

JJ sniffs in response. Already there’s another tear slipping down her cheek, and she bites her lip to try and stop the sob that’s threatening to escape. Rosalyn lifts her hand to brush away her tear, but JJ flinches in response.

“I’m sorry about your butterfly,” Rosalyn says, and the dam breaks.

“It’s not fair,” JJ cries, hands digging into the dirt. “I thought she wanted — I thought — I thought she was my friend.” 

“Oh, Jayj,” Rosalyn murmurs, and she pulls her sister into her embrace.

She melts into it, the sturdy feeling of her big sister, and she buries her face in her shoulder, sobbing.

JJ doesn’t have many friends at school. She is quiet, awkward, timid, a little clumsy, and everyone thinks it’s a little weird she goes by JJ instead of Jenny or Jen, but Mary Ann has many friends, and she said she wanted to see the butterfly JJ presented at show-and-tell, and JJ thought that meant she thought she was cool and maybe they could be friends.

Except Mary Ann ripped the butterfly out of her hands and called her “stupid,” “ugly,” “lame,” and when JJ tried to grab her back, her wings were torn. She was an eastern tiger swallowtail, with pretty black striping and a splash of sky blue, and JJ had spent so long looking for her. And Mary Ann and her friends had laughed at her while she cried, trying to pick up the pieces of her butterfly.

“I hate her,” JJ says, and immediately she feels bad, because “hate” is a strong word and her mommy always said she shouldn’t ever say that, but right now, she thinks she hates Mary Ann.

“I hate her too,” Rosalyn says, and JJ startles, but her hands keep stroking through her tangled blonde locks. “I hate that she made you cry and she hurt your butterfly. I think she’s a meanie-poo.”

And despite her sobbing, JJ giggles. “Meanie-poo?”

“Yeah, I think she’s a meanie-poo,” Rosalyn repeats. “I think she’s a stinky, rotten, meanie-poo.”

“Meanie-poo,” JJ giggles, and her sister smiles, brushing away the leftover tears and the wet strands of hair sticking to her face. Then her face falls.

“Is Mommy mad at me?” she asks quietly.

There’s a pause before Rosalyn responds, and it’s with something in her eyes that six-year-old JJ cannot quite understand.

“Mommy’s not mad at you,” she says.

“But she yelled at me.”

“Mommy’s been really stressed lately,” she says, and when she sees JJ’s face scrunch up in confusion, she hurries to clarify. “She’s really tired ‘cause of all her work, and when she saw you crying, she got scared.”

“Oh,” JJ says, because if she had to pick a word to describe her screaming mother, it would not have been “scared.” Then more guilt, because it is her fault that Mommy was scared.

“It’s not your fault, Jayj,” Rosalyn says. “It’s that stupid meanie-poo’s.”

And JJ laughs because Roz said the “s word” and that’s a bad word, but it dies down when Rosalyn says, “We should go tell her mom.”

“No,” JJ says immediately. “No, I don’t want to — ”

“But someone has to know,” Rosalyn says. “Her mom should know that she’s a stinky meanie-poo — ”

“I don’t want to!” JJ shouts, and immediately Rosalyn quiets, just holding JJ by the shoulders and looking at her, and JJ tries to not let the tears fall again.

“I don’t want to,” she repeats, and Rosalyn nods.

“I know,” she says. “But you have to stand up for yourself.”

“I don’t want to,” JJ says. 

“Okay. Do you want to go and find another tiger swallowtail?”

“It’s an eastern tiger swallowtail,” JJ corrects, but she crawls out from under the porch with her sister, and they spend the rest of the afternoon searching the fields. And for a while, it feels like JJ didn’t lose anything at all.

They spend Friday evenings with their grandparents. Nana and Haydyn welcome the two with a glazed apple pie, and listening to Roz tell them about her singing performance at the school talent show and JJ’s new butterflies, this old, creaking farmhouse feels more like home than the cold house back in town full of shouting and scowling. Haydn takes them to feed their goat and two cows, and even though Roz complains of the stink, when Bella the goat bleats in protest, they all laugh. 

Dinner is chicken pot pie and green beans, and the big sheepdog, Shelly, sits beneath the dining table, and JJ is small enough that her feet barely graze his thick fur, and she laughs and giggles and she doesn’t notice that Rosalyn is watching her the entire time. They play poker in the evenings, gambling off small chips that JJ slips Shelly when she thinks no one is watching, and at night, Nana and Haydyn have a room prepared just for the two sisters. 

Just when JJ is about to doze off, it’s Rosalyn’s voice that brings her back.

“JJ! JJ, it’s snowing!”

And even though it’s way past their bedtime and she knows she’s supposed to be quiet, a squeal escapes from JJ as she bounds to the window, pressing her face up against the glass and watching the little flakes float down, illuminated by the moonlight. There’s footsteps behind her, and she whirls around to grab her sister’s hands.

“It’s snowing Roz, it’s snowing!” she shouts, and even though Rosalyn shushes her, JJ knows she’s just as excited from the way they almost dance on the cold wooden floor.

“It’s so magical, Roz, it’s like we’re in — ”

“A winter wonderland,” her sister finishes for her, and JJ shouts in agreement.

“We’re the snow princesses,” she says. “This is our castle.”

“Shelly is our magic dog,” Rosalyn suggests. “He’s our guard dog ‘cause he’s so big.”

“Bella is magic too!” JJ protests. “She makes it snow.”

“Bella is magic too,” her sister laughs. “What about Mabel and Moxie?”

The cows. JJ is still thinking when Rosalyn gasps. 

“What?”

“The moon,” Rosalyn says in a hushed voice, and nine-year-old JJ is a little small for her size, just a little under four feet, and so her big sister hoists her up underneath her arms, and JJ gasps at the moon.

“It’s so pretty!” she says. “It’s a full moon, Roz.”

“It is,” Rosalyn agrees. “Do you know what a full moon is?”

“Um,” JJ says thoughtfully. “It’s a circle?”

And Rosalyn laughs and runs her hand through JJ’s hair, and she giggles.

“A full moon is when the Earth is right in the middle of the sun and the moon,” Rosalyn explains, shifting her weight so that JJ is seated on her hip. “And because the moon is facing the sun, this one big side of the moon is completely lit up.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” JJ says. “How come the Earth doesn’t block the sunlight?”

“I don’t know,” Rosalyn answers, and JJ giggles. “That’s what Miss Jordan said in science class.”

“Okay Roz,” JJ says, and she hums before speaking again.

“JJ , I need to tell you something.”

Her voice is more hushed and solemn, and JJ twists around in her grip to look at her. 

Rosalyn might have JJ’s hair, just like their mother’s, but her eyes are a pale brown color, almost hazel, just like their parents’. JJ is the only one with blue eyes, and everywhere she goes, she’s told  _ how beautiful, how striking, how vivid _ they are, and though she doesn’t tell anyone this, she doesn’t like her eyes much. She likes how warm Rosalyn’s eyes are, how they seem to be filled with so many colors at once, but JJ thinks her own eyes are too bright, too cold.

“I love you,” Rosalyn says, and JJ blinks.

“I know,” she says. “I love you too.”

And Rosalyn laughs, but there’s some sort of sadness as she lets JJ down to the ground, and she gets on her knees so she’s at eye-level, and JJ blinks again because her sister is never this quiet and still. Even when their parents are yelling and they’re huddled in Rosalyn’s closet under a blanket, hands still combing through JJ’s hair, she notices how Rosalyn is shaking, mouth set in a hard line and a look of something dark on her face that makes JJ scared to look at.

“Are you okay?” JJ asks, and she doesn’t miss the flicker in her sister’s eyes right before she smiles.

“I’m okay,” she says. “I just wanted to tell you. You know how I’ll be going to college in a few years?”

JJ flinches at the “c” word.

“I don’t want you to go,” she says, and Rosalyn gives her another sad smile.

“I know,” she says quietly. “But I have to.”

“No you don’t,” JJ protests, but she’s old enough to know that East Allegheny is no place to stay in, surrounded by people who have known you since the day you were born and by parents who are so caught up in their own bitterness they can’t look out for their two kids.

And Rosalyn doesn’t say anything but points out the window. “You see the moon?”

From this angle, JJ can’t see anything, but she remembers the pale, glowing orb in the sky and nods.

“Promise me,” Rosalyn says, “that if you ever miss me, you’re going to look at the full moon. Because I’ll be looking at the moon too. And even though I won’t be with you, we’ll be looking at the same moon. And that’s how I’ll know that you’ll always be there with me.”

“The same moon,” JJ echoes.

Rosalyn squeezes her hands and nods.

“The same moon,” she says. “I’ll always love you. Promise me you’ll know that.”

“I promise,” JJ says. And then, “I’ll always love you too.”

Saturday afternoon comes too quickly, and it doesn’t escape from JJ her mother’s narrowed eyes and the sourness coming off of her father. She grips Rosalyn’s hand more tightly, and Rosalyn squeezes back in response, meeting her mother’s glare with a fierce stare of her own. They give Shelly one last pet before stepping off the porch, but when they make their way to the old van, the door is locked. And they’ve started arguing.

“Dan, you have to stop,” is Haydyn’s gruff voice, and responding is their father, but his voice is so slurred JJ can’t make out any words. “Think of the girls.”

“He doesn’t care,” comes their mother’s bitter snap. “He just drinks whatever he wants, whenever he wants, he won’t listen to that damn shrink — ”

“Roz,” JJ says loudly. “Roz, can you tell me about the Mayflower?”

And Rosalyn tells her the stories of the first European pilgrims, and JJ tries to listen because no seven-year-old wants to hear her parents fighting and she just wants to hide with Bella the goat and pet Shelly the sheepdog and listen to Roz forever and ever, and she doesn’t really notice how Roz’s eyes darken and how her jaw tightens when their father says something and their mother slaps him.

JJ is quiet in school, never raising her hand and speaking in a voice so soft all the teachers have to ask her to speak up, but _ she’s a bright kid,  _ they say,  _ knows everything even though her parents are going through it.  _ Because East Allegheny is a small town, and everyone knows that Dan Jareau has a drinking problem and has been sleeping with the high school science teacher for a while now, and all the kids whisper about her whore father when they think JJ isn’t listening, picking flowers in the recess field while everyone else plays kickball.

JJ asks Rosalyn what a whore is that night. Rosalyn doesn’t answer and asks JJ if she wanted to go out and catch more butterflies. She says yes.

JJ is not a stupid girl.

She teaches Rosalyn how to weave flower crowns from the wildflowers and tall grass in the fields behind their house, and when JJ goes to delicately set one on Rosalyn’s head, there’s a golden flash that catches her eye.

“What’s that?” she asks.

Rosalyn startles before her hand flies up to her collarbone, and she smiles.

“This?”

When JJ nods, Rosalyn glances around comically before putting a finger to her mouth with a hush, and her little sister giggles.

“I’ll tell you, but you can’t tell anyone,” she says.

JJ’s eyes widen, but she promises with her eyes and zips her mouth shut.

“My boyfriend gave it to me,” Rosalyn says. “He said it’s to show how much he loved me.”

And JJ groans because,  _ ugh, boys, _ but she still can’t help asking, “Can I see it?”

Rosalyn hesitates only a little bit before unclasping it and passing it over, and JJ makes it a point to hold it delicately in her hands, watching the chains pool in her tiny palms, and she studies the tiny gold heart.

“It’s so pretty,” she says, and Rosalyn agrees.

She gives it back reluctantly. JJ wonders if there will be someone who loved her enough to give her a necklace like that.

It’s when Rosalyn is doing her eyeliner that JJ notices the marks on her arm.

“Are you okay?”

Rosalyn puts down her arm, and her brows furrow.

“Of course I am,” she says. “What’s wrong?”

“Your arm,” JJ says, and immediately Rosalyn flinches, her right hand flying up to her left wrist, but it’s too late; JJ has already seen the cuts on her wrist from where her jacket rolled up.

“What happened?” JJ asks, and she reaches out to try and see for herself, but Rosalyn smacks her hand. 

“Hey!” she cries out, and Rosalyn scowls.

“I’m fine,” she says. “Tina got a new cat, and it doesn’t like me.”

“You haven’t been eating either,” JJ points out. “Are you allergic to it?”

And Rosalyn looks at her with something so tender and soft that JJ wants to hug her, and she smiles that same sad smile.

“Probably,” she says. “I’ll be fine, I just won’t go over to her house again.”

“Do you need medicine? We could ask Mom — ”

“No,” Rosalyn says sharply, and JJ freezes at the harshness. “You can’t tell Mom or Dad, okay?”

When she doesn’t answer, Rosalyn prods her with the eyeliner pen. “Promise me. You can’t tell them.”

“I won’t,” JJ says, but her lip is trembling because Rosalyn only sounds this angry when she’s yelling with Mom and Dad, and Rosalyn sighs.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have gotten mad at you.”

“It’s okay,” JJ says.

Her sister smiles. “Look at your eyeliner. You’re so pretty.”

Rosalyn cuts her hair off and dyes it brown. When she gets back from school, JJ is hiding around the corner when their father goes to confront her.

“What the hell did you do?” he shouts.

He’s been drinking, JJ knows. She came home earlier to find him staggering around the living room, bottles and bottles of beer littering the floor, and she took refuge in her room, locking her door and praying for anyone, literally anyone, to come and save her.

“I dyed my hair,” comes Rosalyn’s cold voice.

“Jesus Christ. Is it that boy? Tom?”

“Leave me alone.”

“I’m your father, you will not — ”

“You’re barely around!” Rosalyn shouts, and JJ flinches behind the corner as she hears disorganized footsteps pounding on the stairs. “You’re off sleeping with Miss Jordan, she has to teach me and look at me and know she’s banging my dad — ”

“Do not disrespect me, you have no idea — ”

“I’m not some stupid teenager, I know what love is, unlike you — ”

“You’re 17, you don’t — ”

“You don’t understand that we’re in love — he loves me.”

“Rosalyn, you don’t even know what love is — ”

“You don’t get it.”

And the door slams so loudly it rattles the walls, and her dad’s roar of anger sends JJ scurrying into the pantry, closing the door behind her and hoping someone would come save her and her sister. Her mother comes home later, and still in the dark pantry, she listens to their screaming. Glass breaks right before the front door slams, and JJ hears her mother sob. She slips out easily and tries not to look at her mother’s shaking figure at the dining table, and she steps delicately around the shattered glass bottles on the ground.

Her mother sends JJ to get her sister for dinner. But it’s hopeless. Rosalyn hasn’t eaten in days, there’s no point.

But she still knocks on her door and opens it because JJ loves her sister.

“It’s dinnertime, mom says.”

Her voice is tiny in Rosalyn’s dark room, and she can only vaguely make out her figure hunched over on her bed.

“JJ, not now,” is her reply, and Rosalyn is looking at her with something so dull and lifeless and it’s nothing like her sister.

JJ takes in a deep breath and pulls together the meanest bones in her body, and she forces out, “You have to come eat because you haven’t eaten in three days.”

And Rosalyn snaps, lips curling back in a snarl as she shouts, “Get out!” and hurls something at JJ. 

She flinches back behind the door just so it misses her, bouncing off the door and crumpling to the ground. The heart necklace.

“Why are you like this?” she whispers, because she is eleven years old and she knows her sister is suffering and that cat scratches don’t look like the marks on Rosalyn’s wrist and JJ just wants her to be happy again. 

A thought crosses her mind. “Is it Tom?”

And Rosalyn stills. Tilts her head back and sighs before looking at JJ, something unreadable in her eyes.

“No,” she says. “I broke up with Tom months ago. Will you just go away please?”

JJ leaves.

The first time, Rosalyn was only a little upset when she found JJ wearing her necklace. And when she told her that Mary Ann and her friends all had necklaces and she didn’t, Rosalyn told her she’d find a necklace just for JJ. 

The second time, Rosalyn had failed an english test. Yelled at JJ, blamed her for being the reason why she failed. And JJ cried as she gave the necklace back.

The third time, Rosalyn catches her in the act.

“What are you doing?”

JJ slams the jewelry box shut and spins around. “Nothing,” she says, but she withers under Rosalyn’s cold stare.

“Don’t say nothing, my necklace is missing,” she says, and JJ flinches as she barrels on. “You stole it again, didn’t you?”

Rosalyn holds out her hand expectantly, and JJ looks away. 

“How many times do I have to say — stay out of my room?”

JJ gives her the necklace. She doesn’t miss the way Rosalyn’s hand hovers above it before taking it, and she holds it at length, playing with it with both her hands. Rosalyn studies JJ, eyes softening.

“Why do you even like this so much?” she asks, and there’s a rawness that makes JJ want to tell the truth. 

“Because it’s yours,” she says, and she waits for Rosalyn to yell again, to snap, to do anything.

But Rosalyn only sighs, still fixated on the necklace, and —

“Then I want you to have it.”

JJ startles.

“Really?”

Rosalyn is already crouching down, clasping the necklace around her neck, her, “Yeah,” only a little broken.

“But you love this necklace. Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” Rosalyn murmurs, voice thick and so full of love that JJ can only stand still and accept it, and when Rosalyn leans back, looking at her handiwork, JJ feels beautiful and yet guilty.

“Because no matter what happens, I’ll always love you, JJ,” Rosalyn whispers, and JJ wants to say  _ I know, we promised, we were snow princesses and we looked at the full moon and we promised _ .

But Rosalyn smirks a little, and she adds, “Besides, this necklace will ward off the tall man.”

And JJ rolls her eyes and tells her, “That’s a stupid, made-up story.”

“The story’s made-up, but some monsters are real,” Rosalyn corrects swiftly, and after a short pause, “and if a monster ever sees you wearing this, he’ll know not — ” she pokes her in the stomach and JJ giggles “ — to mess with Jennifer Jareau.”

And JJ is still a little unsure about the necklace, hand flying up to touch the cold surface, and Rosalyn winks at her. “Cause she’s a total badass.”

“You think I’m a badass?”

“I think you’re the baddest of asses,” Rosalyn confirms before frowning, brows furrowing. “That came out wrong.”

And JJ giggles before Rosalyn tickles her, and they’re laughing and it’s like the old Roz is back, and it’s just enough that JJ doesn’t see the sadness in her eyes.

JJ wakes up early the next morning to make breakfast. It doesn’t make sense that Rosalyn would just give her her favorite necklace, but she likes it too much to consider otherwise. This breakfast is for Rosalyn, a thank-you. JJ knows she’s been busy from school and hasn’t been eating breakfast, but JJ knows how to make her favorite pancakes and how to fry her eggs _ just right _ so the yolk’s a little runny, just how she likes it.

Rosalyn isn’t in her bedroom when JJ goes to check on her, and stuttering a little, she frowns before noticing the closed bathroom. She goes to knock.

“Roz?”

No answer. She tries the knob, and it’s an old house, the locks never worked, and she opens the door and Rosalyn is in the bathtub, facing away from the door. Her position looks almost comfortable, like she’s just soaking, but her arms are splayed out and the water is red.

“Roz?” JJ tries again, but her voice is so very, very small in this cold bathroom.

There are so many more marks on her arms than JJ realized, smaller white ones running up and down the length of both her arms, and then larger, dark red cuts that are still oozing red, dripping onto the tile floor, a little puddle next to the tub. Something glints in the maroon: their dad’s old razor.

And JJ waits. Waits for her to get up, because Rosalyn must’ve just fallen asleep last night while taking a bath, and any moment now she’ll wake up and laugh, tell JJ  _ sorry, I’m really tired _ , and then tell her her necklace looks wonderful, and JJ will smile and show her the breakfast she’s made just for her big sister because she loves her, and they’ll laugh and eat breakfast together and they’ll go to their grandparents’ farm and pet Shelly, who’s a little slow because he’s so old and feed Bella and the cows, and everything will be okay.

“Roz, wake up,” she tries to say, but her throat is dry and she can’t make any noise.

But Rosalyn does not get up. She stays in the tub, unmoving, the water still and a murky maroon, and the only thing JJ can hear is her heart pounding.

“I love you.”

Rosalyn does not say it back.

Footsteps behind her. “Jennifer, what are you doing?”

Her mother stops behind her. “Rosalyn?”

Then the screaming starts.

The funeral passes by quickly. JJ only blinks and nods, the necklace burning into her skin as she stares straight ahead. Rosalyn Jareau looks peaceful in the casket, eyes fluttered closed and wearing her nice Sunday dress, the sleeves pushed down to their full length so as to hide the plethora of scars and cuts, the only visible sign of Rosalyn’s pain.

JJ wonders if heaven has the same moon as the one here on Earth.

Her father doesn’t show up, and at the memorial service, her mother locks herself in her room. People drift by, saying things that float out JJ’s ears, and she only nods blankly. When everyone leaves, the house is too quiet, and for one horrible moment, JJ smells that horrible metallic scent, the same as the one in the bathroom.

She still fits under the back porch, curling up underneath the wooden planks and digging her fingers into the moist dirt.

No one comes for her.

**Author's Note:**

> why does no one talk about jj and her childhood trauma. hello??? why are we just gonna gloss over it.  
> anyways this fic is mostly canon compliant but also has all of my own projections so we get this hot wreck.  
> hope y'all enjoyed!!


End file.
